Progress?

There was a piece in the i yesterday, reflecting on the innumerable changes that have occurred in the world in the seventy years of the modern Elizabethan era. It was interesting to read, in part, of her response, in 1968's Christmas broadcast, to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April of that year: "...mankind can only find progress in friendship and co-operation...", referring to brotherhood. The article relates the progress in the decades since in civil rights and equality, and the changes in societal attitudes, mores and institutions that are still grinding, unfortunately-oh-so-slowly, away at prejudice and bigotry.

It's interesting, then, to return to the Queen's current Prime Minister's words of just a few years ago: “It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies.” Even this old socialist would baulk at thinking 'one' was even faintly 'amused' at that crass 'satire'. At least the crowds attending the thanksgiving service at St. Paul's Cathedral signalled their disapproval of this throwback of a man, whose days in office must surely now be numbered.